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A number of ceremonies in Prague this week paid tribute to the 2,500 Czechoslovak pilots who flew with the RAF in WWII. Close to 500 of them died in action. Those who came home received a hero’s welcome, but the nation’s gratitude was short-lived. When the communists came to power in 1948 they were portrayed as enemies of the state, jailed and persecuted.

A full-size replica of a Spitfire, the legendary fighter plane and symbol of the Battle of Britain in WWII was unveiled at Hradčanské náměstí by Prague Castle on Friday to mark the 70th anniversary of the return of Czechoslovak airmen. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Prague Cardinal Dominik Duka, veterans and others. Pilots who served in the RAF returned to Prague not immediately in May of 1945 but in August. When the communists came to power in 1948 the airmen were portrayed as enemies of the state, jailed and persecuted. Some 2,500 had served in the RAF.

President Zeman‘s plans to attend commemorative events in China marking the end of WWII in the Pacific has made the Czech Republic the only country to break EU ranks on a proposed boycott of the celebrations. EU leaders are reportedly staying away from the events due to tensions between China and Japan, and according to Tuesday’s Hospodářské noviny which carried the story, the fact that the Czech Republic threw a spanner in the works of a coordinated EU position because of its president has not been well-received. I asked Jakub Janda of the European

One of the early atrocities of World War Two was the violent suppression of protests by Czech university students on 28 October 1939. This was just over six months after German troops had marched into Prague. One student was killed and three weeks later a further nine were executed. Twelve hundred more were sent to concentration camps. The news caused outrage in countries fighting Nazi Germany and 17 November was declared International Students’ Day. With the help of staff from the Czech Radio archive, David Vaughan and students from the Anglo-American

The praise quickly started to flow after news of Sir Nicholas Winton’s death at the age of 106 was announced on Wednesday afternoon. Bravery, humility, and his deep humanitarianism were some of the words used in tributes paid by British and Czech prime ministers and Czech president Miloš Zeman.

Germany’s use of long range rockets towards the end of WWII in a desperate but vain attempt to turn around the tide of the war, is a well known episode in history. So is the fact that many of the German experts were drafted in by the victors to help with the United States and Soviet rocket programmes. But a late Czech chapter in the attempt to develop new super weapons and rockets is little known and still shrouded with questions.

The former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright on Friday paid a visit to the Terezín Memorial where she unveiled a plaque to members of her family who died in Nazi concentration camps in WWII. The former US secretary of state only found out about her Czech roots when she was 59-years-old and has since made an effort to trace her family’s tragic past in Czechoslovakia.

Around three hundred people are taking part in the march from Pohořelice to Brno commemorating the victims of the violent expulsion of local ethnic Germans that took place after the end of WWII. On May 31, 1945, some 20,000 German-speaking inhabitants of Brno were forced to leave the city and walk to the Austrian border. Around 1,700 are believed to have died of exhaustion on the way. Saturday's ‘Pilgrimage of Reconciliation’ will culminate with a commemorative meeting in the Old Brno monastery, attended by the mayor of Brno and other Austrian and German public officials.

A Czechoslovak refugee from World War II has willed all his assets to the US Department of Treasury, the Seattle Times daily wrote this week. A Seattle-based couple, Joan and Peter Petrasek, willed their entire estate of over 850,000 USD to “the United States of America”. Peter Petrasek was born in Prague in 1927, and fled Czechoslovakia in 1949 for political reasons. He died in 2012 at the age of 85. Although the will had no more specifics, the daily suggests Mr Petrasek made the move out of gratefulness to his adopted country.

Just over a week ago around 300 schoolchildren from the West Bohemian city of Plzeň crowded into its art nouveau masterpiece, now serving as its main cultural centre, to hear from around a dozen men around 75 years older. The former US and Belgian soldiers were among those who 70 years earlier had fought their way through Europe and landed up, sometimes fleetingly, in Plzeň at the end of World War II.